History TabletopGame / LegendSystem

%%* CloningBlues: Part of the premise of Comfortably Grim.

[[http://www.ruleofcool.com/ Legend]] first started on Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick forum's Test of Spite arena as a series of house-rules to improve the flaws of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons 3.5 Edition''. It soon became evident to the arena masters that the amount of house-rules that resulted - nearly 80 pages worth of material - was sufficient to reach a critical density and spawn an entire book. Development on a new game system incorporating their house-rules began shortly afterwards, which eventually culminated in a role-playing game that, while still based on the d20 system, was substantially different from ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. It aims to provide a sleek chassis for a wide variety of gaming styles and fantasy archetypes with an emphasis on quick, rules light play.

Legend's most obvious defining feature is the Track system. Rather than taking levels in classes, characters are built by combining three or four tracks that each center around a certain ability and gain every ability from these tracks as they level up. Each class consists of three tracks, which center around different abilities - for example, the default Barbarian's abilities center around [[UnstoppableRage Raging]] (Path of Rage), [[OneManArmy Hitting Lots of Enemies At Once]] (Path of Destruction), and [[MadeOfIron Blocking Things With Your Chest]] (Path of the Ancestors). Multiclassing is accomplished by switching out one track with another - to continue the above example, someone wishing to play a technically minded fighter could swap out Path of Rage with the Ranger's Iron Magi track and focus on stringing together precise sequences of blows, or switch Path of the Ancestors with the Rogue's Acrobatic Adept to focus on dodging and weaving through the battlefield. The sheer quantity of tracks (almost 60 and counting) allows for some [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot rather unorthodox]] but [[HundredPercentCompletion 100% viable]] builds.

* TheBerserker: Path of Rage's default fluff.
* BlowYouAway: The Air Elemental Track, and Just Blade's telekinetic powers.

* CharacterLevel: There are 20 of them. CharacterLevel is also the ''only'' measure of power in the system - all monsters have levels in the same manner as {{Player Character}}s, with a monster's challenge rating determined by level.

* ClockworkCreature: Produced by Mechanist Savants.
* CloningBlues: Part of the premise of Comfortably Grim.
* ComboPlatterPowers: Multiclassing can - and frequently does - result in this.
* ConsummateProfessional: The Troubleshooter feat - you find trouble and you shoot it.

* DanceBattler: Path of the Dervish.

* DishingOutDirt: The Earth Elemental Track

* DiscardAndDraw: Late Buy In.

* EpicFlail: A feat with that name.
* FairyCompanion: Acquired via the Summon Mote feat.
* {{Fartillery}}: The "Smell of Napalm" feat.
* FinishingMove: A class ability of the Vigilante track - a once-per-Encounter attack with copious bonus damage and temporary hit points.

* FloatingContinent: Hallow is made up of "constellations" of hundreds of massive floating islands (each one is 30 to 160 miles wide, but they average 80). Most of them are interconnected. Each constellation is centered around a massive semi-sentient divine machine that regulates things.
** Also, dwarves live in massive floating strongholds which they pilot around for trade.

* GadgeteerGenius: The Mechanist Savant track.

* HealingPotion: One of several consumables.

* HiddenWeapons: Any weapon with the [Hold-out] property.
* HitAndRunTactics: Present, especially at high levels where the archers can fly. However, most melee characters carry a gun or bow with which to shoot back.
** Or fly themselves. Or get a power that cancels flight. Or-

* InsistentTerminology: Any word that has a specific definition in the game is written in isolated [[SelfDemonstratingArticle [Brackets] ]]. [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools This is not a bad thing;]] in fact, it helps clear up rule confusion when everything has a strict definition.
* KnightInShiningArmour: The Knight Track

** A RedMage type build is equally possible with the same trade-off - a melee character (Barbarian, Ranger, Paladin, Rogue, or Monk) with multiclassing and Late Buy In can acquire both spellcasting tracks while maintaining some melee abilities and weaponry. Likewise, a spellcaster can do the same thing to acquire their counterpart's spellcasting track and a melee ability, although [[SquishyWizard the limitations of their base class]] may cause some problems.

* NaturalWeapon: Present and accounted for. They gain something of a power boost from the fact that they - and, by extension, their properties - are always active and available even with [[StatSticks another weapon]] drawn. This allows you to [[MinmaxersDelight have an active weapon loaded to the gills with defensive properties while still having a strong attack freely available.]] This is an acknowledged tactic, and highly encouraged by the Devs.
* NinjaPirateZombieRobot: One benefit of the track system is that it's possible to construct many of these, up to and including a Ninja Pirate Zombie ''Franchise/KamenRider''. [[labelnote:Breakdown]] The tracks required for this specific combination are Swashbuckler, I Am Ten Ninjas, Undead, and Vigilante.[[/labelnote]] Furthermore, the system's insistence on letting the players and GM create their own fluff means that there are very few hard limits on what can be assembled.
** A literal one. Start as a Sentient Construct Shaman. Use Shaman's Path to get Swashbuckler from Rogue. Use your free multiclass to get I Am Ten Ninjas. Then opt for Full Buy-In to take the Undead track with Ghoul. Now you have I Am Ten Ninjas (Ninja), Swashbuckler (Pirate), Sentient Construct (Robot), Undead (Zombie).

** Trivial Falls that deal no damage
** Hazardous Falls that do up to 30 damage - devastating to low level characters, easily brushed off past level 5 for almost anyone

* OurAngelsAreDifferent: Archons and other fluffy-winged celestial beings exist, and there's even a racial track for players with several options to make each character unique.

* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Played with. Dwarves in Hallow are highly logical beings who often become irritated when dealing with less rational creatures (ie, anyone who is not a dwarf) and come across as rather Vulcan in nature. Then you have a subset of dwarven monks who prefer to get drunk and beat the living daylights out of their enemies.

* PerpetualMotionMonster: The "By Will Sustained" feat. Also useful for {{Player Character}}s.
* PlayingWithFire: The Fire Elemental track and Elementalists with fire as their chosen energy type.
* PoisonousPerson: Elementalists who have Acid as their chosen energy type.

* SchizoTech: Justified in various ways.
* ShockAndAwe: Elementalists with Electricity as their chosen energy type.
* ShootTheBullet: The “Reign of arrows” track can do this, along with shoot the arrow, gun boulder, and spell.

* StatSticks: See NaturalWeapon above. In addition, there's a selection of lesser items that each boost one ability score by 2.
* StoneWall: Many defensive tracks make the character into these.

* ThrowDownTheBomblet: The Demo Man track.

* TrainEscape: Possible in Osaka Street Stories.

* UniversalSystem
* UnstoppableRage: Still the Barbarian's calling card; available to any class via multiclassing. Notably, it gets legitimately quite unstoppable as the character levels up - a higher-level Barbarian's rage includes features such as counting as one size larger (whether or not the character actually grows in size is left to the player), being able to intimidate enemies in combat, and gaining immunity to mind-affecting attacks. At the highest circle of the track in question, the Barbarian ''[[TranquilFury never stops raging.]]''

* {{Wuxia}}: Discipline of the Crane has been called "Wuxia In A Can."
* {{Yakuza}}: Present in Osaka Street Stories.

* ZergRush: Pretty much the entire point of Myriad-class {{Mooks}}.

* BreakingTheBonds: Athletics checks allow you to break free from anything: ropes, chains, even [[UpToEleven gravity itself]].

Legend's most obvious defining feature is the Track system. Rather than taking levels in classes, characters are built by combining three or four tracks that each center around a certain ability and gain every ability from these tracks as they level up. Each class consists of three tracks, which center around different abilities - for example, the default Barbarian's abilities center around [[UnstoppableRage Raging]] (Path of Rage), [[OneManArmy Hitting Lots of Enemies At Once]] (Path of Destruction), and [[MadeOfIron Blocking Things With Your Chest]] (Path of the Ancestors). Multiclassing is accomplished by switching out one track with another - to continue the above example, someone wishing to play a technically minded fighter could swap out Path of Rage with the Ranger's Iron Magi track and focus on stringing together precise sequences of blows, or switch Path of the Ancestors with the Rogue's Acrobatic Adept to focus on dodging and weaving through the battlefield. The sheer quantity of tracks (almost 60 and counting) allows for some [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot rather unorthodox]] but [[CrazyAwesome 100% viable]] builds.